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An anonymous reader writes "An article by Abbas El-Zein at The Guardian explores the ethical responsibilities for engineers who create and maintain 'technologies of violence.' He says, 'Engineers who see themselves as builders of the shelter and infrastructure for human needs also use their expertise in order to destroy and kill more efficiently. When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers? There is more than one answer to the question of course, but two points are especially pertinent: the common good we engineers see ourselves serving and our relationship to authority. ... Our ethics have become mostly technical: how to design properly, how to not cut corners, how to serve our clients well. We work hard to prevent failure of the systems we build, but only in relation to what these systems are meant to do, rather than the way they might actually be utilised, or whether they should have been built at all. We are not amoral, far from it; it's just that we have steered ourselves into a place where our morality has a smaller scope.'"

While it is hard to draw exact parallels, society already holds engineers to similar standards to doctors. The outrage over doctors experimenting on helpless test subjects is pretty similar to, say, when engineers use live subjects for testing weapons.

While it is hard to draw exact parallels, society already holds engineers to similar standards to doctors. The outrage over doctors experimenting on helpless test subjects is pretty similar to, say, when engineers use live subjects for testing weapons.

Yeah. The article's author is making a poor analogy. Blaming engineers would be more akin to blaming the scalpel designer for the doctor's experimentation. Its not the scalpel or the gun that is the problem, it is the mind and the intentions behind the hand holding the scalpel or gun. Both can be used for good or bad.

He didn't say that, but that summarizes the lives of thousands of people who make a living designing and building weapons (except a few fanatics who relish the though that their weapons kill $bad_guy)

That summarizes perhaps a small minority who design and build weapons. Lets consider the M1 Garand Rifle of the U.S. Army and Marine Corp. It was designed during peace time in the 1920s and 30s. It was used to destroy the Third Reich in Europe in the 1940s and in the 1960s it was used by some panicked National Guard to kill students at Kent State University in Ohio. Most of the engineers envisioned a use of the "destroy the Third Reich" type, not the students at Kent State type.

My point, with is close to your point, is that the engineer designs a tool. The manufacturer builds a tool. They sell it to someone who the government says will be using it within the framework or the law, or at least in accordance to our interests.

Since the end of the Korean war, it takes longer than most US wars have lasted to build a _new_ weapon (Afghanistan is the exception that confirms the rule). So you don't start designing a weapon thinking how great it will kill $bad_guy, hoping they're still shoo

But on a related topic I think we really should start seriously considering whether we should postpone certain paths of research instead of just doing things because we can. Too often we are doing things just because the technology is ready. Whether society and laws are ready, doesn't even get a consideration.For example: the creation of viable human-animal[1] hybrids may be possible in the future. Same goes for certain mixtures of human, cyborg, animals, AIs etc. But if we are not ready to decide whether t

Really? Explain to me what purpose an M1 tank or an F22 fighter has besides killing people? What humanitarian purpose do land mines serve? Assault rifles? (target shooting? don't make me laugh) Hand grenades? Let's not pretend that the engineers working on these products have no idea what they will be used for. Plausible deniability does not apply to a lot of weapons.

There are many technologies where the line between ethical and not-so-much is fuzzy but you hardly have to go to WMDs to get there.

Presumably most of those engineers would assume these technologies would be used to defend their friends/family/people they care about. I'm sure you would also be the first to put these engineers up against the wall when they refused to design anything that could defend against a bolt action rifle. A single shot is all you need for hunting or target practice after all; anything more is just to kill people.

When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers?

Whenever I read something like this, I immediately think of Florman's "Existential Pleasures of Engineering" [amazon.com] despite the title, Florman's book is rooted is actually a spirited apology for the engineering profession in an age where everyone was lamenting all the modern horrors that those damned engineers could have prevented if they had just be more ethical.

As Florman notes, there has been a large focus for the past half-century on making engineers more ethically aware, and it's mostly pointless. Despite what most people seem to believe engineers are not philosopher kings any more than Technology is some sort of self-sufficient, self-empowering beast working counter to the benefits human society. Both do exactly what the rest of society tells (read: pays, begs, and orders) them to do, and nothing more. And while you don't see many engineers saying this -- because when someone tells them that they run the world and hold the future of all man kind in their hands, people are disinclined to temper their ego and deny it -- we only do what the suits pay us to do, and if we don't do that they fire us and move on to someone else who will.

Let's ask this another way: why aren't business men considering the ethical implications of their investments? Why aren't militaries, bureaucracies, and governments considering the ethical implications of their orders? Why isn't the average person taking five minutes to understand a problem now so he doesn't demand government, the market, and God on high give him an answer that he's going to hate more than the original problem a year from now?

Every profession has ethical considerations. More ink has been spilled and time spent on the subject of ethics in engineering and practical sciences than any discipline save medicine. And yet it does not solve the problem and will not solve the problem because that is not where the problem lies.

Let's ask this another way: why aren't business men considering the ethical implications of their investments? Why aren't militaries, bureaucracies, and governments considering the ethical implications of their orders? Why isn't the average person taking five minutes to understand a problem now so he doesn't demand government, the market, and God on high give him an answer that he's going to hate more than the original problem a year from now?

TFA presumes that we as engineers are smarter, better humans than everyone else, that we can and should forsee all of the ethical implications of our work. It's pure hubris, and I call shenanigans. By and large, engineers do what their employers pay them to do, to feed themselves and their families. IMO, every link in the chain should be held to the same standard of moral accountability. We're not exempt, but it's unreasonable to expect us to take any more (or less) responsibility for the bad things that

Some of us choose not to design weapons. It isn't theoretical. I've turned down job offers that turned out to be essentially for improving ways to kill people.

Some of us choose to design technologies that work against the NSA's unconstitutional spying rather than for it. Again this isn't theoretical. I've been presented with some choices and taking the high road is ultimately easier to live with, even though people don't thank you for it at the time.

Maybe in a world with an agressor and no ready defense technology, the moral landscape would look different. But there is no shortage of military technology. I can choose not to add to it. To add to it is immoral. To not add to it is moral.

I fail to see what is inherently immoral or unethical about designing weapons or other technologies for you own country's defense. If you can prevent that missile from landing on an unintended target (civilian) or prevent terrorists from blowing up your fellow citizens, that is also a morally good choice.

Actually it is in a way. This strategy only works because you are protected by other engineers who design the weapons that protect you, whether you approve of those weapons or not.

There is nothing wrong with your moral choice but lets face facts. Pacifists can only exits in absolute isolation or where they are protected by friendly non-pacifists. In the real world there will be unfriendly non-pacifists who will subjugate, enslave or kill you. Regrettably this is the way some humans are wired.

In the book "Guns, germs, and steel" a warlike group of pacific islanders are mentioned. A subgroup colonizes a new island, loses contact with the original group and in isolation becomes pacifist. When contact is reestablished the subgroup is enslaved. This was done to blood relatives separated by only a small amount of time (in generational terms) with a common culture, language and religion.

Think of the Engineers and Scientists who made the a-Bomb.1. Don't help and you will be the reason for a sustained war costing millions of lives of mostly military personnel.2. Make the A-Bomb that will kill ten thousand civilians and ending the war.

If I say designed a better targeting system. Did I...1. Make a system more capable of destroying people.2. Make a system more capable of not hitting the wrong people.

So basically, no engineer could work for DoD. So, let's take that idea to the extreme. We disarm, and nobody is allowed to work on any defensive weapons, and we all sing Kum ba yah. Make sense? Yeah, I didn't think so either.

A medical doctor who participates in a state-sanctioned execution will still find himself in professional jeopardy at home and typically wouldn't be allowed to practice abroad. The same is not true of engineers involved in the design of devices used in state-sanctioned executions.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

However, he and many of the project staff were very upset about the bombing of Nagasaki, as they did not feel the second bomb was necessary from a military point of view.[113] He traveled to Washington on August 17 to hand-deliver a letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson expressing his revulsion and his wish to see nuclear weapons banned."

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

However, he and many of the project staff were very upset about the bombing of Nagasaki, as they did not feel the second bomb was necessary from a military point of view.[113] He traveled to Washington on August 17 to hand-deliver a letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson expressing his revulsion and his wish to see nuclear weapons banned."

Oppenheimer was always a very conflicted individual.

Remember that he wasn't an elected politician or military commander, he was a civilian scientist who was tasked to develop the atomic bomb. It was never his job to decide if the bombs should be used and he knew that. In fact, he was very much motivated to both develop these weapons during WWII when he was terrified of the Nazi's developing a nuclear capability and using it on the Allies.

It's unfortunate that he felt bad about it later on. But guess what? A lot of people felt bad about many of their war actions later on. However, it was war. People tend to make different decisions when they are under an extreme amount of stress from a looming predator as compared to when they are relaxing in their vacation house.

Try to envision the time period. The Nazis had annihilated most of Europe and were gassing civilian Jews to death because they didn't think they were the perfect race. They were making lightshades out of Jewish skin for fun. The Japanese were waging a particularly vicious war on the Pacific. The US was stuck between these two insanities and tried to stay out of things for as long as possible. 12 MILLION people died in WWII. After the Nazis surrendered, the US had to start shipping war weary troops to the other side of the world for more fighting.

Was dropping two atomic bombs on Japan a nice thing to do? No. But I think the US was prepared to keep making nukes and dropping them on Japan until Japan surrendered rather than lose more US troops invading Japan.

Among their plans was one to dirty-bomb the US west coast, San Francisco in particular.

They also understood the potential for a fission bomb and were working on it. This is why they recognized the A-bomb right away.

That's also why it was important to bomb Nagasaki the week after Hiroshima. This discredited the generals' claim that making these things was hard and the US couldn't have very many of them. Dropping two in as many weeks raised the spectre of one a week forever.

And the generals were right. As I understand it, the US had one in the pipeline and enough material for one or two more. Then there'd have been a several month pause, followed by about one a month.

This dearth of material, combined with the fact that the first one dropped was an untested design so failure WAS an option, was why there wasn't a demo to try to convince the Japanese to knuckle under without an actual bombing. The less-than-a-handful were too precious to be spent on other than actual targets.

We still haven't used up the Purple Heart medals we manufactured in the 1940s in anticipation of the casualties we expected in the invasion of Japan. In the context of WWII, the atomic bomb undoubtedly created a net savings of both allied and Japanese lives.

In Rowanda the slaughter was committed using nothing more than machetes. However the people where whipped into a fervor by people on the radio inciting to violence. Marconi should have seen it coming. He had a responsibility.

More seriously, to paraphrase stephenson and others. human beings are at the top of the food chain because we are the most effective and fearsome killing machines currently known. We will find new ways to kill things, and each other regardless of the intended purpose of a tool, and how many safe guards are built into it. It is what we do and why we are where we are.

Technology is a tool, and a tool can be used a weapon. You should blame the one who wields the weapon. Do we blame Pasteur for biological warfare? I do not, but without him much of what we know about making bio-weapons would not exist.

You can study rockets to go to the moon, but eventually someone is going to shoot them at their neighbor.

You can study a way to get cheap energy for everyone, but eventually someone will make a bomb.

You can create a large forum for the people that is resistant to people stopping you from communication, but someone will eventually create a global spy system that watches everything you do.

It is unfortunate, but I would place the blame not on the person who makes the technology, but the one who decides how to use it. When we complain about doctors helping with torture, we are complaining about the ones there to extend the pain, not the ones who came up with ways keep people alive.

It is unfortunate, but I would place the blame not on the person who makes the technology, but the one who decides how to use it.

When we design something, we're "the one who decides how to use it"; that's part of designing it. The intentions of the designer matter, and if they're evil the designer should be blamed. Consider, If I make a torture device, can I just shrug my shoulders and say 'they decided to use it the way I designed it, so it's their fault'?

To make it more relatable, if I make a Friendface website where it's easy to share personal info but hard to protect it, should I deserve any of the blame? Even if the users deserv

A lot of the engineers I've known who worked on military equipment do consider the ethical implications of their work. They feel they are helping protect our troops (see the beginning of Iron Man 1, where Tony Stark uses a similar justification), or something similar.

Other guys I know are just happy to have a job. Some people consider it unethical to work in the corporate world at all, so just because you consider something unethical, doesn't mean everyone considers it unethical. The NSA has the purpose of catching terrorists, which is a good goal. The reason we don't like them is because of the abuses, not because of their goal.

I've worked on military systems before that were designed to enable killing.

Mine were more accurate than any predecessors, used better sensors than any predecessors, and had better controls than any predecessors. Sure, it's possible to send it off to kill civilians, but if you're aiming for the bad guy, it will kill only the bad guy, and not the schoolchildren next door.

To me, that's ethical. It'd be great if we could stop killing each other, but until that happens I'm going to do my best to keep everybody outside the conflict safe.

I worked on a military project in the early part of the 2000s focused on cracking cell-phone encryption technology. At the time, it was just an interesting problem, with the potential to maybe "help fight terrorism". I didn't really think a lot about the implications of the work, I was just glad to have an interesting job.

I've now got a bit more perspective. Maybe the technology I worked on helped us catch Osama bin Laden. Or maybe it's helping the NSA listen to American citizens. Maybe both.

I don't think it's as simple as saying that engineers are responsible for all of the uses of the technologies they build, but I don't think we can ignore all responsibility either. Something I think about a lot these days.

There is certainly a sort of "mercenary" ethic amongst many defense engineers. As long as there are soldiers willing to pull triggers, there will be engineers willing to design the guns. As well as simple game-theory type reasoning - "I can take the pay for this job; but if I don't, they'll find someone else who will." I get the feeling the article author doesn't know and didn't really talk with any longtime defense engineers - professors can be quite removed from that world.

And this is to say nothing of the defense engineers who are actually gung-ho about their work.

A lot of the engineers I've known who worked on military equipment do consider the ethical implications of their work. They feel they are helping protect our troops...

I graduated with a dual BS in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. At graduation time, I very much wanted to be an engineer rather than a programmer, but I also didn't want to contribute to war in any capacity; so I narrowly focused my job search on employers who were NOT in the defense sector. Nearly everyone I told about my decision gave me the very same argument as you. My self-imposed restrictions certainly made my job search harder, so I expanded my search to programming where I found a sat

Saying an engineer shouldn't design a better weapon is like saying a doctor shouldn't treat a wounded soldier.

No, saying an engineer shouldn't design a better weapon is like saying a doctor shouldn't culture anthrax for the military to use as a weapon. I'm not particularly opposed to designing better weapons for the military (it will happen regardless), but it does seem engineers are held to different ethical standards than medical docs. Not necessarily better or worse standards, mind you, just standards more suited to the job they perform.

Saying an engineer shouldn't design a better weapon is like saying a doctor shouldn't treat a wounded soldier.

Ethical doctors treat the wounded on both sides. Can most (military) weapon designers make the same claim?

I see nothing unethical about designing or manufacturing weapons for defensive use, so long as you sell them indiscriminately to anyone in need of defense. Knowingly designing or manufacturing weapons for use by an aggressor, on the other hand, would make you complicit—much like selling a weapon to someone knowing that they plan to use it to rob a bank or commit a murder.

Please provide a working definition of aggressor that stands up beyond ethical idealism. It can't just be going off to fight on soil that isn't your own, because that makes the US wrong for stepping in to help stop Hitler. On the other end, it can't be any conceivable contrivance like invading a oil-rich country because your cabinet member owns an oil company and he needs a little extra pressure.

"When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers?"
If the doctor uses their knowledge of anatomy to conduct medical experiments, do we blame the person that created the tool, the tool, or do we blame the doctor? When someone uses a weapon to kill someone, do we blame the person that created the weapon, the weapon, or the person using the w

As others have pointed out, the items are merely 'tools' and the application the tool is where the morality lies.

Could you imagine a world where we routinely use nuclear weapons to relieve stresses in the Earth's crust and prevent large earthquakes and their devastating effects? What about stopping large oil spills quickly?

Biological and chemical weapons were used, are used. It is just that now the world decries their use. If you look at WWI for instance. So it wasn't always the case that doctors were persecuted for using their knowledge for war.
With engineers, creating conventional weapons, that is something accepted by the world. There is no moral outrage(on a large enough scale to matter)against a 500lbs bomb. When it comes to conventional weapons, everyone accepts the risks. We realize we need defense, so they are good. If someone uses them for offense, or evil instead, then that person is blamed, not the engineer.
Should people that create steak knives also think about the ethical implications if someone gets stabbed with their knife? What if a car is used for violence? I realize these aren't the best examples, but my point is intended use. That is what matters.
If an engineer creates a single weapon that will destroy the planet, then you will have your outrage. There is no point to such a weapon. Nuclear weapons are close to that, but they have been used to save lives as well.(est. that over 1 million Americans would have died invading Japan, along with millions of Japanese)
There is nothing wrong with stepping back and saying, "Am I morally Ok with what I am creating?" But when it comes to conventional and nuclear weapons, if someone says no, then there will be hundreds to take your place. Military technology also trickles down to the general public and improves their lives as well.

Designing a missile system to kill lots of brown people on the other side of the world is not very ethically ambiguous. Thing is, there are plenty of technologies that are.

For example, DARPA has been doing lots of research on robots. They point out how self-driving cars can save lives, robots can find and defuse bombs and rescue victims, etc. But these technologies can be used for war just as easily.

Even if I could develop a morality engine and install it in every device, system, and process I've ever worked on, I don't think I would. Not only is it too comnplex a problem, it subverts the morals of the user and substitutes my own. And I Know I don't have the far ranging vision to appreciate the fine points of every potential future situation to evaluate them properly. It is hard enough to do that well in real time, with all or most of the facts and evidence present for examination.

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?RANDAL: The ending of Return of the Jedi.DANTE: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a

Interestingly enough, according to canon this actually wasn't true. The Star Wars canon actually provides my favorite (fictional) example of an engineer who completely failed to consider what the project they were working on would be used for. There was a whole super-top-secret space lab, where a bunch of engineers worked on weapons of unimaginably massive destruction such as the Death Star... while being fed bull about how they'd be used for good (I recall the Death Star specifically was supposed to be use

I have long thought it was time for OSS licenses to support a morality clause, that does not grant license to the software when the software is used to extinguish life or violate the rights of people. This, if applied to Linux, would prohibit use of Linux in military applications, like that sniper rifle as well as a number of drones.

I have long taken a moral exception to working for defense contractors, especially since 9-11 when we started spying on everyone and killing people with drones. However Linux/OS

and not just those who happen to work in today's "hot button issues" Amazon and its massive JIT warehousing has a social impact just as much as working on a new drone avionics package - and economists and accountants who need to have and follow an ethical code - if you develop a tax doge that damages poor people ok in his book?

Most engineers I've met who work in defense do not wake up every morning thinking about more efficient ways to kill women and children. They wake up, believing that what they do furthers the protection of their families, fellow citizens and their homeland. Doesn't matter if the engineer is an American, Chinese, Russian, Israeli, Iranian, etc., most pretty much think that what they do is going to create a better and safer world for their loved ones. The engineers at the NSA, and I would even argue their most senior leadership, likely believe that what they do is for the benefit of the United States. I think there's plenty of room to argue whether or not their assumptions and ethical standards are correct, but to imply that they're not thinking about this at all or simply creating superweapons for sport with no care about their end uses is overly simplistic.

When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers?

When a doctor tortures a patient there is a direct cause and effect from the doctor's actions to the pain and suffering of the victim.

When an engineer designs a weapon, he's not actually causing the pain and suffering. Once you get away from "complete responsibility", the rest is easy:

1) If I don't do it, someone else will2) I need to feed myself and my family3) It'll only be used on the bad guys4) It helps protect my country5) It's the user's responsibility, not mine6) The boss thinks it's a good idea7) It has significant non-evil uses8) No one will ever know it was me

For a concrete example, consider the Collateral Murder [youtube.com] video from a couple of years back. Who was responsible for these deaths?

The helicopter pilots got the go-ahead from their commanders, the commanders [probably] got the go-ahead from intelligence services, the services made the correct decision based on the information they had, and the information was somehow "wrong".

Who's to blame for the collateral murder incident? By deftly distributing blame among many players, it changes from personal responsibility to "a failure of the system", or "a tragic accident".

For a second example, consider Bush's Iraq war: he was on TV stating that he had convincing evidence of WMDs in Iraq. A couple of years later it came out that the intelligence services had never said this and tried to convince the president of the opposite. Bush's response was: "We [the administration] didn't get the message". (Note the use of "we" in his statement.)

Who's responsible for the war? The President says he got bad intelligence, the intelligence services say they never gave bad intelligence. It's impossible to lay the blame on someone, it's a "failure of the system".

But don't worry, the problem is fixed - it'll never happen again.

(Epilogue: The Gulf oil spill was largely enabled by failures of the Minerals Management Service, who is responsible for overseeing the safety procedures of off-shore drilling. The problems were largely fixed by renaming the service to Bureau of Ocean Management [boemre.gov]. The problem is fixed, now we won't have any more disasters. Sorry about that...)

Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem w

I won't go into specifics, but for me a few extra dollars or potential for advancement would *not* compensate for the lifetime of guilt I'd suffer knowing something I built or contributed to was primarily designed to do harm. Likewise, I will lose respect for those in a similar position to me who willingly contribute or design those systems.

On the other end of the scale, folks struggling to get by have my sympathy when assigned tasks like this. Food on the table and a roof over their family's head may tr

I was brought in to a government contractor's project as consultant during the Vietnam War. They were having severe problems with building their software system, and expected me to help them identify the root causes. For two weeks, they hemmed-and-hawed, trying to keep from telling me the true purpose of the system. Finally, when it was clear they couldn't understand the root problems themselves, they briefed me on what the system was ACTUALLY intended to accomplish. They did this on a Friday.

I was appalled that American citizens could dream up such an incredibly horrible intention: I can't say more, but the goal (in part) was to efficiently kill innocent civilians.

My choice was clear: I packed up, went to the airport, and bought a ticket home. On Monday, I was back at my regular desk. There was simply no way my conscience would allow me to optimize the schedule and effectiveness of such a project. There was never any repercussion, from anyone. I understand the contract was cancelled for non-performance several months later.

We who understand technology need to make value judgements: Do YOU want to write code that disadvantages fellow citizens? Do YOU want to create systems that transfer wealth from middle-class to rich folks? Do YOU want to write code that has secrets that could harm someone in the future buried inside? Do YOU want to make money by cheating ordinary citizens (think High-frequency "trading")? Do YOU want to see more systems, like NSA's, that violate the constitution, the law, and common decency?

Does a teller at JP Morgan think about the ethical implications of their work?
Does a cashier at WalMart think about the ethical implications of their work?

In both examples a person that is in no way responsible for the overall direction of the company is facilitating the daily operations of the company that will commit unethical acts.

We cant just ask Engineers to sacrifice their careers because some whiny Journalist/Engineer is having a moral crisis. Our entire society is unethical. We buy clothes that were made by people working for less than $100 a month, living in concrete rooms smaller than most jail cells, who were forced into that labor by their parents. We shop at companies who are lobbying to oppress workers rights. We use electronics made by children and people who would rather kill themselves than continue working at Foxconn.

Get off of your fucking high horse and stop acting like an Engineer is any different than a Banker or a CEO or a cashier. We are all players in the same fuckedup game.

The big difference with medical knowledge being used to torture versus, say, design of a weapon, is that weapons have moral use. Defense is inherently moral, and technology makes that safer and better. Technology used to kill is the same as a sword being used to kill, is the same as a rock- if the man behind the tool is working towards good, defending his nation / family / self, then the action, and the weapon is moral.

Torture, on the other hand, is always wrong. But that doesn't make scalpels evil, or handguns, or rockets.

You end up with the engineering equivalent of pharmacists refusing to sell contraceptives because they think that contraceptives are immoral.

It's amazing how everyone who says "so-and-so profession must consider the ethical implications of their work" always imagines that the person considering the ethics happens to be considering ethics that they agree with. They never think that they might consider unethical contraceptives, abortion, gay sex, miscegenation, etc.

We *want* apartment owners to say "If you use that apartment for sodomy, I am not responsible just because I rented you the apartment you used to do it in."

I suspect that another key problem with ethics is that many evil things are more fun to do, think about, and tell people than the boring things. If you tell people that you are an HVAC engineer they will think, "BORING!!!" yet the reality is that you make many poeples' lives more comfortable, and with good designs, save energy, and create healthy environments. But if you tell people you are the inventor of the hellfire missile or build nuclear bombs then they will go, "oooooooh"

I'm not sure there is any limit to the "coolness" of what is effectively sociopathic behavior; If you tell tech people that you are building a military robot that is designed to hunt and then jump onto the faces of the Taliban (alien style) and stuff a GPS tracker/grenade down their throat that forces them to surrender or be blown up from the inside then you will make headline news. If you develop a way to make cheap home wiring that conducts better than silver you are back to boring.

The above evil will get a few people to gasp in horror but most people will want to know more.

Now normally the defense industry goes through spasms of peace and the engineers face huge layoffs. But this time around the US is effectively doing a War on Fear which will pretty well never end. So if you can invent a tool for annihilating the boogy man then you will remain solidly employed. I you are inventing somethings solar that reduces fossil fuel use then your employment will be fitful at best.

Kind of have to agree on this one. Look at the history of war. Look at how many fewer deaths we've had from war after WWII. It's much smaller than what we had before WWII. For instance, Number of deaths in Vietnam vary depending on who you ask, but the number is for sure less than 1 million. Compare that to WWII, where 50-80 million people died.WWI was around 37 million. Why such a sudden decline all of a sudden? hard to say it was all because of the bomb, but it's definitely a deterrent. Maybe we are

Vietnam is far from the biggest war after WWII - just the best known to Americans. Try the recent second Congo war, which killed over five million people.Yet most people here haven't even heard about it.

I personally don't think that nuclear weapons have deterred much. USA, Soviet/Russia, China, United Kingdom and France all have been waging wars after WWII. You'd think that those would be the countries fighting the least post-WWII if that were the case.I think it's more that the huge big wars don't happen all that often in the first place.

For now they have. What happens when they get used? Don't tell me you've fallen for that MAD survivor's bias nonsense. The only reason the Cold War didn't destroy human civilization is luck. More than once it came down to the right man in the right place making the right call. We won't always be so lucky.

And remember: we need to get lucky EVERY time. If we get unlucky just once, it's all over. Forever. All the easily accessible petroleum is gone. If we get unlucky, there will be no rebuilding of ci

Every single person needs to do this. If you work in the weapons industry and don't feel bad about it, you are a psychopath. Simple.

So your view is that good guys produce no weapons, and bad guys produce lots of weapons...and it's that simple? What happens when the bad guys decide to be bad with their weapons by turning them on the unarmed, defenseless good guys?

Or, is it that some people should work in the weapons industry, but feel really really bad about it. And of course, those of us who have happy jobs are the better people, since we took the "high road" by forcing someone else to be bad. Perhaps we could have a lottery (Shirley Jackson's version), to decide who among us has to be bad so that our good lives can continue safely. Then we can all sit back and bask in the shiny, sunny warmth of just how good we all are, unlike those bad, bad people who make weapons that we can defend ourselves with...

I think George Orwell summed it up thusly:
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
In other words don't sit around in a nice 1st world country and pretend it got that way by accident.

I work in "the weapons industry". I sleep well knowing that my projects are being used so that my baby girls can sleep well at night. But then, I've seen first hand what motivated, evil people do when nobody stops them. But then, I've been to some nasty parts of Africa. At the risk of Godwining the thread, I strongly encourage you to go tour one of the concentration camps in Germany. Those people exist, and to paraphrase, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."-Orwell,

Strictly speaking coders are not engineers. We use that term colloquially but I definitely got the impression that the article was speaking primarily of PEs.

Very few engineers of any sort are PEs, at least in the US. Whether you are a classical mechanical/electrical engineer, or a coder, seems to be purely a subjective distinction. Some coders I know are definitely engineers, some are not (by my world view).

I think the article applies to any of the above, but the cited examples may be the domain of PEs - which as stated in the article - are not funded at all like corporate engineers, and thus have concerns more relevant to their funding model. Plenty of coders are involved in making missiles, and in fact some distruptive things (like bitcoin) were created by coders. There are huge ramifications to bitcoin, should it become successful: tax evasion, illegal trug trafficking, import/export bypass, etc. All things our government was asked to interfere with, by someone, for some reason, that are bypassed by someone's experiment. You may not support "the war on drugs", but the freely elected government of the US chose to take it on in response to various pressures. There are ethical implications to providing a mechanism to easily bypass this to others.

This topic always comes up, but the bottom line is: if it can be done, someone will do it. The world is not populated by exclusively ethical people, engineers are no different. Having a thing and then choosing not to use it probably causes less actual destruction than not having it at all.

You work in petrochem. Are you killing the planet or providing necessary energy?You are an interior ballistics expert working for a swedish arms manufacturer (Hi Oerjan). The weapons can be used to stomp ruthless murderers and terrorists or it can be shot into crowded buses. Do you own all of that?You build dams. They provide power but they flood habitat. Are you doing something ethically good or bad?You develop car engines. Cars get people around. Your engine might save on greenhouse gases. But it furthers the automotive culture. Ehtical or not?

I'd say at least half of the projects had some dodgy aspect somewhere in them (the online gambling one was the most distasteful but it was legal and thus within general public acceptance although I felt a bit slimy as did many developers). You can pick ethical issues out in most projects both in terms of the final product, the marketing, or the underlying model of operations that the invention supports.

Do engineers own all of that? That's a lot to expect. If none of us worked on projects in any way dodgy ethically or morally, society would not have most of what it has today. I'd image a good 70% of technology would not exist.

Choosing to shelve a project for an ethical principle, for the reason I stated in my last sentence, makes sense only if you think you are uniquely clever and no one else will think of it.

That strikes me as profoundly arrogant. Perhaps a few people in the world at any time are justified in so thinking, but there are plenty of historical examples that suggest even really clever things can be conceived of independently.

So a physician or nurse should just go ahead and help the CIA torture some poor goat herder in Gitmo, because they're not 'uniquely clever' and someone else could do it? Sorry, doesn't fly.

If I don't feel something is ethical I won't do it. I don't care if the guy at the next desk over can do it or not, that has no bearing on my decision at all. **I** won't do it because I feel it's wrong.

I find it extraordinary that you believe engineers have the choice to "shelve their own projects" in any significant frequency, given that nearly all of the perform work for hire, and don't own what they create. And don't say "patents" to me - my name is on a small number of patents, and I have fuck-all say in how those things are used; I didn't even get my dollar for the patent rights!

As an engineering consultant, I do in fact have a copyright on the design documents I produce. If I really wanted to, I could sue a former client if they attempt to continue using my designs. They are licensed, not sold.

And if I shelve a project (or more appropriately, walk off a job - which I've done) then all that really happens is I'm no longer legally responsible for any shit that goes down from that point on. I can refuse to deliver finished project documents, oversee the project construction, and addr

Strictly speaking coders are not engineers. We use that term colloquially but I definitely got the impression that the article was speaking primarily of PEs.

Strictly speaking coders are not engineers.

They may or may not have an engineering degree/license but what coders are doing is most assuredly engineering. I'm an industrial engineer by training but I also do work almost daily that could be described as electrical engineering and sometimes mechanical engineering. Just because you don't have a document hanging on the wall saying you are an engineer doesn't mean you aren't one in real life.

We use that term colloquially but I definitely got the impression that the article was speaking primarily of PEs.

There are relatively few PEs compared to the number of engineers out there. Having a PE license doesn't mean you are better at engineering than someone who doesn't have one. The the sort of engineering I do it would have been a complete waste of my time for me to go get a PE license. It simply isn't necessary for many engineers. A PE is only required in certain circumstances and primarily for liability and statutory reasons. (Though it must be said that people with PE licenses tend to be good engineers in my experience)

Submitter doesn't like humanity very much. He wishes there were laws, rules, regulations, and guide lines for everything. He wants to hold engineers responsible for their discoveries. He wants to judge each discovery as "good" or "bad", then reward or punish the engineers, scientists, and the craftsmen for whatever results.

Sad as it is, I prefer the world we have, in which men and woman exercise free will.

What you describe is already in place fro the poor and elderly; Medicare and Medicaid, respectively. They've been around a long time and they're pretty popular with everyone. There's also social security, which is essentially the same except not medically related.

I think everyone who understand what insurance actually is understands - at least implicitly - that they are subsidizing someone else. These people also understand that if they end up needing help, then others will be subsidizing them.

"I think everyone who understand what insurance actually is understands - at least implicitly - that they are subsidizing someone else. These people also understand that if they end up needing help, then others will be subsidizing them."

No, and this is a common and tragic misunderstanding.

Insurance is not designed for systematic subsidizing others of different risk profiles. It's not supposed to subsidize anyone on average at all. Yes, a single instance of covered peril will end up pulling money from other similar subscribers, but on average, in fact, everyone must lose.

Whereas when the "risk pools" are forcibly intermingled by law, the low-risk people are systematically exploited to pay for the high-risk ones. What Medicaid, Social Security etc. have in common with obamacare is that they are also not "insurance" but wealth transfer.

You're full of it. Insurance is ALL about spreading the risk. Over the population and over time. It is precisely the recent trend of narrowing pools to get all reward and no risk that have make such a hash not only of the insurance industry but of the people and businesses who were "cherry picked" and "lemon dropped". Recall the recent financial collapse. Not only did the industry fail, but the insurance underpinning the industry failed. And the insurance was supposed to reduce the damage done in case of a failure. Which is why the whole thing snowballed.

Yes, there are one-shot policies such as travel insurance. But the term of most policies runs in years. Yesterday's young and healthy are tomorrow's old and infirm. That isn't "socialism", it's investing. Pure and simple. Depending on the plan, it may even pay dividends. An Insurance plan is intended to insure that you have an organized way of putting aside money, that it will be invested by the insurer to permit the insurer to be able to make a profit on that money (and maybe even return some of it), and finally, to deliver if and when you need the money. It's not primarily intended to be a casino or lottery, even though there are plans that run that way as well. A balanced plan will statistically be equivalent to having all of the money you saved up for your life's needs no matter what point in your life you end up needing. Because you never know when you're going to be hit by a truck, no matter how young and healthy you are. Or even meteorites, as a kid in South Florida recently discovered.

Nope. One accepts the consequences of his actions, that goes without saying. Among other things, I'm a motorcycle rider. I choose my actions, and I suffer the consequences when I am wrong. You learn that lesson very soon after hopping on a bike for the first time. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and when the reaction involves tearing off some of your hide, you learn.

Whenever evil corporation X has done something wrong (left a back-door in their router, put a virus in their game) people want to hold the CEOs personally responsible. It's often questionable if the CEO/VP/directory/manager even knew what was going on. But the engineers sure as heck did.

Probably because a Doctor helping torture someone is directly involved. The engineer's creation may be used in a way he/she never invisioned and with no involvement from him./her

Nor even with the knowledge of the ultimate use of his/her creation. Weapons can be used for good, its all about the intentions of those operating the weapons. For example those engineers who worked on weapons used to destroy the Third Reich, many of these were designed during peace time, ex M1 Garand Rifle of the US Army and Marine Corp. Short of WMD things are not so clear.

Indeed. Let's look at the classic case, Alfred Nobel and Dynamite. The same exact substance both aids mining AND is used in weapons. . .

And then there is the flip side: weapons tech adapted to civilian use. Modern electronics come to mind, as do many of the techniques of trauma surgery, developed in war zones when dealing with wounded. . .